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Today’s Audio Episode
Rachel: A Beloved Wife-Trinity Tidbits
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Rachel: daughter of Laban, wife to Jacob and mother to Joseph and Benjamin, and sister to Leah.
Joseph was tricked into marrying Leah 1st, sister to Rachel. Genesis Ch 29-35 tell their story in detail.
Later this week, devotional readings will give more details on this story. Check it out.
Great life lessons are to be gained from this story. Can you figure them out? Listen and read to see.
Join me this week as we talk about Rachel.
A few months later, after Mary went back to Nazareth, Elizabeth gave birth to the son she had always hoped for. She named him ‘John’. Luke 1:57-66
Everyone was very happy and excited for her.
She did quite well for an elderly woman giving birth.
There was a discussion among family about the baby’s name and what it would be. They decided his name would be after his father, Zechariah. However, Elizabeth quickly corrected them. She was adamant, his name is “John”. Afterall, this is what Gabriel the angel gave instruction to.
Zechariah now able to speak. This baby would one day be a prophet of the Most High, he said, preparing the way for the Messiah.
This picture is the last we see of Elizabeth. By the examples of the time, she was already old, and she might not have lived to see John grow to adulthood.
So, the main takeaway from this story is that being patient and waiting on the Lord brings great blessings.
How are you doing in your waiting time? Share and bless others with your experience.
While Elizabeth was pregnant with the future John the Baptist, she gave refuge to her young cousin Mary of Nazareth who, pregnant with Jesus and single, might have been escaping from the anger of her relatives.
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, about a hundred miles away in Judea, might’ve been a dire effort by her family to save her from this destiny [in a Middle Eastern rural community at the time, this kind of situation could simply result in an honor killing of the young girl by her fiancé’s family], to get her out of the way until a resolution had been worked out. Leaving Galilee and traveling south, Mary punctually arrived at Elizabeth’s house in Judea after a trip of about three or four days.
When they met, each recognized that they and their children would be an incredible part of God’s plan for mankind.
Luke 1:39-45 Mary got up and went quickly to a town in the hills of Judea. She came to Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the unborn baby inside her jumped, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She cried out in a loud voice, “God has blessed you more than any other woman, and he has blessed the baby to which you will give birth. Why has this good thing happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? When I heard your voice, the baby inside me jumped with joy. You are blessed because you believed that what the Lord said to you would really happen.”
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Well, in this story, at first glance, we just think two women relatives were meeting and the younger one might’ve been visiting to help the older one through the childbirth.
It’s likely that Luke was making diagonal references to the Old Testament stories of Hannah and Sarah.
You may not see it in your life, but God is using you and your life for a bigger plan than you realize. A magnificent and awesome plan. In the grand scheme of it all, our lives are like a massive grand puzzle that God is putting in place using all the pieces of life.
Don’t allow all of the life’s pieces to bring you down. That’s what satan wants. He wants us to be in strife so he can slip in and manipulate us with his sneaky ways keeping us oppressed and depressed.
How does this look in your life? What are you doing with your life puzzle pieces to honor and glorify God? Comment and let’s interact. Bless others with your testimony. Be blessed by what God is doing in other’s lives.
Next & final post coming up: Elizabeth gives birth to John the Baptist.
What was her story?
Elizabeth is Eli-sheba. It means ‘God’s promise’, or ‘my God is generous’.
Her trust in God paid off.
Elizabeth becomes pregnant, Luke 1:5-25. Click scripture and read about Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was an righteious woman married to Zechariah, a member of the Jerusalem priesthood. She was past childbearing age, her husband was elderly, and she had given up hope for having any children. But Elizabeth’s life took an unanticipated turn. She became pregnant, to the surprise of everyone.
Luke 1:13-14 The angel said to him, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will have a son, and you will name him John. He will be your pride and joy, and many people will be glad that he was born.
Luke 1:24-25 Later, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and didn’t go out in public for five months. She said, “The Lord has done this for me now. He has removed my public disgrace.”
Trusting and obeying Yahweh will bless you.
Next up in tomorrow’s post: Mary’s visit to Elizabeth.
What blessings have you been given because you trust and obey Yahweh? Comment and let’s interact. Bless others with your testimony.
Listen to today’s episode of Trinity Tidbits – “5/10 Elizabeth: Mother of John the Baptist” on Anchor.fm.
At the moment each episode is available to listen to for 24 hours from the time it is recorded. You have until tomorrow, Tuesday, the 14th of Nov to listen to this episode. After, that, I’ll have a podcast channel we can use.
Forgive me while we have growing pains with this audio segment of Trinity Digital Ministry. Thank you for your patience.
Eve was the first sinner and saw the fruit of her sin as she stood at the world’s first grave and buried her dead son. After confessing her sin she heard the Lord say to that serpent, the devil, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15). With this first promise of the Redeemer, there started the wicked path of life ending at the cross where Jesus Christ, born of a woman, presented a satisfying victory over sin and Satan.
Through a woman, God’s just universe was ruined and became “a world of sinners lost, and ruined by the fall.” Now, through a woman, a perfect salvation has been given for a sinful people. Through Eve’s sin, death came into the world, but at the cross, both sin and death were defeated, through “dying, death He murdered.” When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” He meant that the serpent’s head, symbolizing power and authority, had been bruised. He defeated all satanic principalities and powers that Eve’s sin brought into the world, and put them under His feet.
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
As we leave our reflection upon the world’s first woman, first wife, first sinner, first mother, and first mourner, there are one or two lessons to be gleaned from Eve’s story. For instance,
What a shrewd, wicked impostor Satan is. How naive so many are – of his tricks! Besides,
There is no sin in being tempted. We only sin when we give way to temptation. Refusing to give way to the attraction of sin, our Garden of Eden awaits perfect.
Paul said, “in Adam, we die- in Christ, we are made alive.”
In asking loyalty to Christ, Paul relates Eve to represent the quickness that one is wicked (see 1 Timothy 2:12-14).
So, there you have it. The Biblical account of Eve.
How can you relate to Eve’s story? Comment, let’s interact.
Next week: we’ll be talking about, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.
The results of a divine creation, Eve emerged as a complete, perfect woman. She was never a baby, a girl, or a daughter. The first female born into the world was Eve’s first daughter (After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Genesis 5:4). How many daughters were born to Adam and Eve we aren’t told. If Eve lived as long as her husband—930 years (So Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died. Genesis 5:5) – there would probably be many sons and daughters in earth’s first family. Eve, therefore, wasn’t born. She was created out of Adam. Having existed in God’s plan, she came upon the earth. Pioneers, evolutionists, and worldly authors may ridicule that “rib of Adam” out of what Eve was made. Adam was literally created by God out of the dust of the earth, but Eve was formed out of a bone taken from Adam’s side.
George Herbert comments, “The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double refined.” There is a spiritual application of the bride God made for Adam. It speaks of the sacred mystery, the bride of the Lamb, who owes her life to His bruised side (John 19:33-37), and who, even more than Eve, has a place close to the Bridegroom’s heart (Jeremiah 31:3), and who is intended to enjoy His companionship in a sinless paradise (Revelation 2:7; 21:9). The marriage of the Lamb, like that of Eve’s, is made in heaven.
God saw that even though Adam was in a state of perfect purity, it wasn’t good for him to be alone. It would be good for him, spiritually, mentally, and culturally to have a wife. He needed someone to love and bear his children since the command had gone out “to multiply and replenish the earth.” Therefore with Adam – the world was sad, the garden was off, and man the solitaire lamented till woman greeted him. God spoke of the woman He was to present for Adam as his “helpmeet” – a helpmeet or reconciled to him – a phrase giving the woman her true standing in the world. It is only where the Bible exists and Christianity is practiced that she succeeds to such a place as the helper, or equal of man.
In lands where darkness dominates, a woman is a slave, the goods of man. Therefore Eve was given to Adam and their two hearts beat as one in love for each other and for God. Eve was formed while Adam slept. He knew no pain during the operation as still there was no sin in the world. How true it is that God is continually working while men sleep! He frequently awards true blessings to His own as they sleep.
It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep. Psalm 127:2
When I wake from sleep, despair has fled, and hope is near; The sky seems blue, and visions clear have banished all my dread and fear; quoted from: All the Men of the Bible/All the Women of the Bible Compilation Book By Herbert Lockyer
So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body. Genesis 2:24
What a path of grief and wretchedness followed her sin! When Cain, her firstborn, came into her life and home how Eve must have loved him. She named him Cain, meaning “to get” or “to possess” or, “acquisition.” He became a tiller of the ground. Her second son was Abel, a name implying, “that which ascends” or “a vapor” – something doomed to fade. The following was a spiritual man and sacrificed the firsts of his flocks to the Lord. The previous son brought of the fruit of the ground, that is, that whatever he had produced, and gave it to the Lord who rejected it and received Abel’s offering because of its sacrificial satisfaction. Cain lost his temper over this act of divine reception and denial and murdered his brother Abel. Consequently Eve’s favorite firstborn was marked with shame, and spiritual Abel became a saint. Behind Cain’s murder of his brother was the serpent who had caused their mother the world’s first sinner. Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning (You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44).
After the crime and exile of her first son, and the funeral of her second one, God gave her another that she called Seth. “For God,” she said, “has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, for Cain murdered him.” In naming her third son so she voiced her faith in God’s love, mercy, and provision. It was through Seth that the spiritual genealogy was kept and it was after his birth that Eve’s name disappears from the pages of the Old Testament, even though it is mentioned twice in the New Testament. While Eve unquestionably shared the length of Adam’s life – 930 years – and brought forth an unspecified number of sons and daughters, there is no record of her motherhood apart from the three named sons.
I love the parallel comparison scripture has of Adam and Eve as the first bride and groom and the Bridegroom of Christ being Himself and the Bride being His church.
I also am in amazement and awe at how the whole world came from Adam and Eve.
Looking at Eve, however, the text talks about her standing in the world, in culture. The wife at Adam’s side, his equal.
We, as women, were not created to be the head of the home. We were created to be a “helpmeet” for our husbands. Is it any wonder there is such chaos in the world?
There is much debate in the world about women and being equal with man. We are equal. But not as the world defines equal. We’re equal to being one with our husbands.
Just like with our body parts. Each one has its function. If all the body was one part how would it function? Looking at the standpoint of a machine. If the whole machine was one part, how would it function? All the parts cannot do the same thing, or it wouldn’t operate.
As one, we have different functions. We work together, as a team, to accomplish what we need to get done, spiritually and physically.
Where are you in this functioning? How’s your team doing? Let’s interact. Comment. No hate speech! Period. If any negative hate speech and lambasting happens the comments will be deleted and commenting will be disabled. There’s no place here for hate. Think very hard at what you are about to comment before commenting.
Eve means ‘life-bearer’. Eve is the Great Mother, Everywoman.
Genesis 2
18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said, “This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.”
They are of the same flesh and the same bone. From the moment of creation, neither man nor woman can be complete without the other. Working together, they form the basic unit of society, the family. The story recognizes that men’s and women’s lives interlock so completely in economic and social matters, that need each other.
Eve [and Adam] were given a perfect world, but they were also given the power of choosing, making decisions.
However, here’s what happens:
‘Eat the fruit’ said the serpent. ‘Why not?’ Eve was intrigued. The fruit would make her wise, she thought. So she took one piece from the Tree of Knowledge, ate it and offered some to Adam. He ate it too.
What choices and actions have you taken that further this curse Yahweh has placed on humanity?
What can we do to get in line with Yahweh and living a Godly life?
Afterall, Yahweh gave us the option of choice. What are your choices? How do they affect your life?
Next up will be more about Eve and her role as wife and mother! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.
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